So...whats for dinner?
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Eric, would love to know how to sharpen my own knives. I wish someone here would give a class. Are you using a series of stones?
Susan, I have dry brined beef and poultry but oddly enough, never pork. For how long do you do it?
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Nance,
Today I salted the pork at 10am. We put them on the grill at 7pm. Supermarket pork I might do longer. I wish you could taste this pig. What a noble animal. Not sure I can ever go back, to be honest. My coding partner on the latest project might buy another pig with me this year. Now, understand, this was new to me as well, so, I am in the experimental stage.
*susan*
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Eric, what a great skill to learn! I'd love to take a knife sharpening class like you described. Hope your stone comes in soon! I got that feeling of a kid who gets an exciting new toy for his birthday and his parents forgot to buy the battery!
Never brined a thing...even turkeys which had become such a popular process.
Slide out cabinets are the best!
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Lacey! How wonderful that class sounds.
Nance, I love your baking center. I bet that's fun.
Eric, I need that knife sharpening class! I have an old stone from my dad and a couple of steels but I'm not too good at it! LOL
Susan did you use a dry run like BBQ? Or simpler?
Carole let me know if the lemon preserving works.
Minus glad the concert was fun.
Momo2, I have Emerils set. The Grey ones ( like Caphalon) not the SS. When my DD1 was in college she worked for Bed Bath and Beyond. They offered deals to the staff and she got them at 50% off for my Christmas present once. She did go in with her sibs though! LOL
Sorry if I missed anyone.
Much love to all.
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Moon - so glad to see you back here & the Book Lover's thread.
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I've got the non-grey Emeril set.
As for dinner, I'm thinking of making chicken tonight for dinner with Stove Top Stuffing and a veg.
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I have never brined either. Cannot get around a mental block against heavy salting of food! The chefs on ATK brine EVERYTHING including dry beans! They have what looks like dedicated brining containers, square in shape.
My brother delivered another box of veggies to my mother's house yesterday. A good friend of his is a big produce farmer. The box contained eggplants, zucchini, green bell peppers, yellow squash, poblano and jalapeno peppers. So I have eggplants, yellow squash and poblano peppers in the refrigerator. A few of the hotter peppers. My sister raided the box and took all the cucumbers except one. I gave the rest to a cousin who lives close by.
I will look up a recipe for "healthy" stuffed poblanos. Maybe a stuffing using quinoa. Or brown rice.
I am slowly dropping the extra lbs. gained during Sept. It's so much easier to pack on the weight than to lose it. One of life's unfair realities!
My bottom cabinets have sliding shelves. DH built the cabinets when we bought and renovated this 70's ranch house 20 yrs. ago. The hardware was expensive.
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Tonight was some nice little homemade looking raviolis that I picked up at Costco, a skillet foccacia and an Italian chopped salad. This is the sauce I made
It's the second time I've made it and I really like it. If you try it, be sure to use the fish sauce. It really adds something (umami).
Carole you have a pepper palooza going on there! There would definitely be some southwest cooking going on for me.
As far as dry brining is concerned, you can rinse off the salt before cooking. I usually don't, but truly I find wet brine makes things saltier than dry.
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Today I canned the tomato relish along with some hot red peppers I found at a great price at the Asian market. An essential ingredient for Rhode Island calamari, which I do love. Don't relish making it however. Anyhow, here is a picture of my day's work.
Dinner was some leftover potatoes and a fast-thawed burger. Too tired for something that took more care.
*susan*
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Awesome Susan! Doesn't putting food by make you feel rich?
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Susan. Those look great. If someone breaks into your house and steals only the peppers....I would be a strong suspect! :-)
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I have the same mental block about the salt thing...even tho there are no blood pressure issues in this house. In Chef Monti's cooking course he gave us a little talk about how important salt was for food's flavor....and then after seeing our (probably my!) skeptical looks, gave us a taste test of the sauce, the chicken stock, and something else I forget....WITH and WITHOUT the benefit of salt. Have to say his theory passed the test, but it still bothers me to use it much.
Susan....nice day's work! Also, love the RI calamari with the hot peppers, but only get it "out".
Carole, looks like you have some ratatouille makings in your fridge. How nice to be given a box of veggies!
We got home pretty late after stretching class, so I heated up some of the kale soup, and made a beautiful rocket salad. Not too hungry tonight as I had lunch out....so did DH...but he is always hungry by dinner time. For lunch I had a half turkey club with a caesar salad. It was interesting to see how many women groups were in Not Your Average Joe's restaurant for lunch....non-working folk. Have I become a part of the suburban wives lunch subset? Not sure I like being identified with that.....maybe I'll just have people to my house for lunch instead. I obviously need to get more used to being retired and/or get over my stereotypes!
So the reason I was so excited about the delightful rocket (arugula) salad, is that the last bags of rocket, and of spinach that DH picked up (the day we returned from Italy when I had to bring a salad to a potluck in our neighborhood) at Trader's were 50% slime, and I was so frustrated....mainly since I didn't have a lot of time to pull the salads together....and it required a last minute trip to another store. So that week I marched back to Traders and complained about their produce quality. Of course they reimbursed me, but one staff guy mentioned a problem with the refrigeration unit behind those greens items. Great! So I carefully inspected the arugula tonight, and it really was as fresh as it looked....not a single over ripe leaf! Guess the machine was fixed, and we really enjoyed that salad!
Okay, DS2 made a new reservation for us to go to TK this Friday. Hope it happens this time. Maybe I'll study the menu a lot to prepare.....
On sort of a sad note....when I went outside to see what weight jacket I needed for my walk uptown for lunch, I noticed that our very large pumpkin which was sitting on a "shelf" on our front porch with five little pumpkin shaped gourds, was missing. It's been there a few weeks. DH and I were both crestfallen that someone would walk up to our not so close to the street porch and "lift" a weighty pumpkin. I immediately looked for smashed remains, but found none. Maybe someone really needed it. I hope so. I think I won't replace it.....I did find myself envying all my neighbors' unmolested big pumpkins on my walk to and from uptown. DH half kidding wondered if we should report it to the police.....HAHAHA. Can you picture the police blotter... "Residents reported missing pumpkin". Uhhhh, No, said I.
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using last of the chili and adding pasta to it!
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I'm sitting along the Interstate highway, during rush hour, waiting for a tow truck. Grrrrrr.
The problem is a broken heater hose that I replaced 6 months ago just because it was 20 years old. The new one split right in the middle. I guess I should have kept the old one in place.
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Eric, what a bummer!
I use salt in my cooking but not an excessive amt. DH and I laugh when we watch cooking shows and the chef tastes the food to check the seasoning. "More salt!" we both say and sure enough, in goes a handful of salt! I think the primary taste in fast food offerings is "salty." Children grow up with their taste buds attuned to lots of salt. I do have bp issues and take a med.
We had "fishy" pan-seared white fish for dinner last night. I had two more packages in the freezer and threw it away. The white fish was delicious in Grand Marais but apparently it didn't freeze well. Our side last night was steamed yellow squash and asparagus with lemon butter.
Tonight I plan to cook stuffed poblanos. Some of the recipes blacken the peppers in advance and skin them. Other recipes don't. I never take this step with stuffed bell peppers. I wonder why the poblanos wouldn't taste good with the outer skin on. I might have to try both ways just to compare.
Haven't settled on the stuffing but it will include cooked quinoa and cheese.
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Eric, hope that you got where you were going, and that the hose isn't too much of a pain to fix...again!
Those stuffed peppers sound good, Carole, with or without skin! Glad you tossed the unworthy fish. "Fishy" is one of those scents that my sensory system cannot cope with, so I rarely work with any fish out of the freezer, except for maybe, shrimp. Sorry for you tho that your summer fish didn't hold up for you.
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I'm ashamed to say this- a week after our 5th wedding anniversary I finally used the slow cooker that someone gave us as a gift! Ended up cooking a whole chicken in it and just did sides of rice, pan roasted brussel sprouts and rosemary garlic roadted potatoes. Finished with homemade chocolate bouchon with fresh whipped cream and raspberries. Pretty tasty and convenient to be able to cook the chicken while out if the apt running around with the kids. Husband is highly suspicious of the sudden domestic turn. Hee hee.
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Sounds like a fabulous dinner!!
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Ditto, Veruka!
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Hi VerukaNY. What part of the city are you located? My wife spent 4 years in the Bronx at SUNY Maritime. Your dinner sounds great. I could have used a slow cooker today. I worked from home, but with all the meetings (6-1/2 hours worth), I didn't have time to sneak in cooking something for tonight until it was a "hurry up" thing.
I nuked, in the microwave oven, a spaghetti squash for 30 minutes and pulled the thing apart with a fork to make it look like spaghetti. The sauce was spaghetti sauce from a jar mixed with hamburger cooked with fresh rosemary and garlic.
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Hi veruka, what did you bake the bouchon in? Sounds like a fabulous meal.
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Hi Eric95us! I'm in Manhattan, downtown in the West Village. I haven't spent much time in the Bronx although I hear parts of it are really beautiful. We do drive through on our way north to see my in-laws. I'm kind of loving the slow cooker - after dinner, the chicken carcass got stripped and tossed right back in along with some vegs and I woke up to homemade stock this morning. Genius! Course, it could be also that the weather here today is wet and cold so I've just got stews and gravy like things on the brain.....
Nancy- I have silicon timbale molds that work really well for bouchon....I also use the same molds for crustless tiny egg quiches and even to make frozen kale cubes for my morning smoothies.
My cousin's wife is visiting from Taipei this week so am going to attempt to get her dumpling recipe down tonight. She measures all the ingredients by sight, so this will be my chance to get it. The kids will be excited for a yummy dumpling dinner and hopefully there will be enough leftover to freeze for later.
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Veruka, sounds like some might tasty aromas are coming from your place this week! Good luck with getting that dumpling recipe down! DH and I spent a lot of time visiting on the West Side, Midtown, when oldest son and his wife were doing their residencies and fellowships there. Miss that excitement of the city since they moved to NJ. Loved walking everywhere!
Tonight's dinner could be referred to as tail wagging the dog pizza. I had this very small eggplant in the fridge that was salvageable, and just could not make more ratatouille just now, even a tiny bit,.....so while cruising Trader Joe's aisles, I noticed their wheat pizza dough, and thought, why not make pizza with eggplant topping. Added carmelized onion, garlic and sweet red pepper to the topping and that little eggplant turned into a nice round pizza as well as some additional pieces made from some french bread "heels" that might go to waste. Had an arugula salad with it.
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The filling I made for the poblano peppers turned out really good. I found a recipe for quinoa prepared like Spanish rice and enhanced it a bit with some corn and ground pork. Added grated cheddar before stuffing the poblanos, which I blackened under the broiler and peeled. Also removed the seeds. BUT... these poblanos were hot and made the filling hot, too. I sprinkled more of the grated cheddar on top of the peppers and melted the cheese They looked appetizing and tasted good, but hot-good!
Three peppers left and about half of the filling left, too. I had lunch after golf today (crispy fried catfish fillets--yum) so will not be eating dinner tonight. I'll make dh a good salad and he can pick his leftovers, stuffed poblanos, Spanish-style quinoa, or chili.
I need to make eggplant lasagna with the 3 eggplants in the refrigerator.
I prepared the lemons yesterday to make preserved lemon. I could only stuff 3 lemons into a pint jar. I squeezed more lemon juice into the jar to cover the lemons but they float up. We shall see what happens! I am leaving the jar out on the counter. Is that what you do, Nance?
Veruka, what a treat to have good dumplings! Hope you get that recipe.
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Carole, just keep pushing the lemons down for a couple of days and add more juice as needed. After a day or two, you should refrigerate them. You might be able to pack a half of a lemon in to tighten them up. It also helps to gently turn the covered jar upside down and gently shake it after a couple of days. It helps distribute the juice.
Tonight is breakfast for dinner -- Spanish omelets, sliced ham and biscuits.
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Thanks for the advice on refrigerating the lemons, Nance. I can't wait to taste them! I have the 30th day marked on the calendar. I am predisposed to like the taste because I have always liked lemons. They and pickles helped to ruin the enamel on my two upper front teeth, now capped.
One miscellaneous bit of foodie info. I learned from a Nutrition Action magazine that a cup of almond milk contains the equivalent of about 5 almonds. After scrutinizing the ingredients, the main one of which is water, I realized that there was a good reason for low calories per cup. So I stopped buying almond milk and am adding ground almonds to my morning smoothies along with ice water and berries and chia seeds and plain nonfat Greek yogurt. Meanwhile the producers of almond milk are making a mint.
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Last night we went to Zoe's for Chinese food. Had a duck with Mala sauce which should numb the mouth, but we didn't quite reach true Mala. But it was spicy enough. I came home from a client day and started right in on the braised lamb shanks. Husband helped chop the vegetables. We like a lot of veggies with our braises. In my rush to get this into the oven, I totally forgot the garlic. No problem! I roasted a head of garlic and added it to the mashed potatoes. Sadly, I didn't eat much. Must have popcorn later tonight to start retaining water for tomorrow's blood draw and treatment.
Back to the lamb shanks. This was delicious! And there is enough left over for husband's lunch tomorrow and our dinner Friday night. A night with no cooking!
*susan*
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Susan, sounds delicious.
Tonight I couldn't decide on rack of lamb with squash or spaghetti with clam sauce so I made it all.
Mo
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Had a big burger and hand cut fries for lunch on the run with DD as we gathered stuff on an Ikea run getting ready for her big move, so was not hungry for dinner but had some roasted chicken leftover so combined it with broccoli, chopped onion and red pepper, garlic, coconut milk and some parmesan over brown rice rotini for DD and DH. I miss the daily roo! I could post pictures of our dog each day - that would be the daily Toby. He's pretty cute!
susan - love the canning! Food as art!
Everyone's meals sound so delish!
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Wow, is it the indoorish weather (at least here it is raining cats and dogs, with brutal winds) that has everyone making such delicious sounding dinners?!
I found myself spending most of the night at the kitchen counter....after making the pizzas, I used up some over ripe bananas by making banana/oatmeal/walnut/cranberry muffins. They are okay, but I really do need to take a baking course....just don't have the gene....wonder if I can learn to be a better baker, despite the gene deficit.
Since I had the oven on, I decided to bake an acorn squash that we can have another time. Then since I was busy clearing the counter of recently bought produce, I cut up a pineapple, and then cut off all the brussels sprouts from a large stalk. Enough!
Carole, I knew that the almond milk was a lot of water, but we still buy it since those oblong cartons are shelf stable...and that's convenient. I like the sound of your smoothies additions. Do you include greens as well? Tomorrow I'm going to use the baby kale varieties I picked up at Trader's in mine.
Eric, spaghetti squah is the best!
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